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f 685 ADMISSION OF KANSAS . 

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Copy 1 

SPEECH 




OF 



HON. ANTHONY KENNEDY, 

OF MARYLAND, 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 12, 1858. 

Assigning the reasons which induce him to favor the admission of Kansas into the Union 
as a State under the Lecompton Constitution. 



The Senate having under consideration the bill for the 
Admission of Kansas into the Union as a State — 

Mr. KENNEDY said: 

Mr. President: I have but little to say, and 
Chat I should prefer saying upon some other 
occasion, after the very eloquent and the very 
able remarks made by the distinguished Senator 
from Virginia. The time, however, has come 
for me, occupying the peculiar position that I 
do here, to define the ground that I mean to take 
in the controversy now before the country. I do 
not intend, in any manner whatever, to go into 
an elaborate discussion of the questions connected 
with the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
or to examine whether the doctrine of popular 
sovereignty has been fully maintained or not. I 
stand here representing a party almost without a 
voice in this Congress. I am here to give utter- 
ance to sentiments and principles upon which 
I believe the permanency and durability of this 
Government depend. I am not a party in any 
manner to the contest which is waged here as to 
the meaning of the Kansas -Nebraska bill. I be- 
lieve, if I believe anything in the world, that it is 
simply a construction of a party principle with 
which I have not had anything to do. 

Mr. President, I have repudiated, and at the 
rery outset let that be understood, the whole prin- 
«ple of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. I have op- 
posed it, because it repealed the Missouri com- 
promise line. I have opposed it, because in the 
repeal of that line it worked injustice to the south- 
ern States of this Union. I have opposed it as 
a Union man — not as a " Union-saver," as an 
honorable Senator said this morning — but because 
I believe this Union can only be maintained and 
preserved by a just regard to the rights of all the 
States, and by observing the rights of that minor- 
ity now to be found in the southern States. There- 
fore, I do not mean to be held responsible in any 
manner for any results that may have ensued from 
the disturbance of that compromise. If my own 
yiews had been carried out, I should have pre- 
ferred to see the country rest on the Missouri com- 
promise line. It had served its purpose for more 



than thirty years. It had been a measure of peace 
throughout this country. And when, either for 
sectional or selfish purposes on one side or the 
other — I speak with all deference to the motives 
and the action of gentlemen here — that line was 
disturbed, and the bone of contention dug up and 
thrown recklessly before the American people, 
without regard to the sectional strife it would en- 
gender, I, for one, deprecated that movement, 
because it brought into unequal contest, upon the 
principle of popular sovereignty, or upon the faith 
of the people, a contest between six or seven mil- 
lions of whites on one side, and twenty millions 
on the other. 

That was the reason why I opposed the repeal 
of the Missouri compromise line; that was the 
ground on which I opposed the principle of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill; and I am sorry to be com- 
pelled to say, perhaps in violence to the sentiment 
or to the feelings of other gentlemen on this floor, 
that the principle in that bill contained is nothing 
more nor less, as it has been carried out, than 
squatter sovereignty and alien suffrage. If both 
measures should become in the ascendant in 
this country, they must subvert every principle 
on which this Government was formed and 
based. 

In the position that I assume, I do not conceive 
that I am called upon to investigate allegations 
of fraud, or to go further into the merits offthis 
question than simply to ask myself whether this 
constitution is here by the authority of law, and 
whether it is republican in its form. After the 
very elaborate and the very able argument of the 
distinguished Senator from Virginia, I can add 
little to the views he has presented on those points. 
I am happy to have an opportunity to say now 
that though I have differed with the Democratic 
party of this country, and though I am in no man- 
ner under obligations to that party for any favor* 
whatever, yet the present Administration has pre- 
sented a measure to me that so accords entirely 
with my own view in the settlement of this ques- 
tion, that as an American Senator, having a jost 
regard to my duty and to the obligations of the 



.K34 



oath I have taken, I cannot for an instant hesitate 
as to the course I shall adopt. 

If I had been bound by any of the principles 
contained in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, or by any 
of the obligations of faith promulgated by the 
Cincinnati platform, perhaps my action on this 
question might be different; but repudiating that 
whole bill, because it disturbed the great principle 
of equality between the northern and southern 
es; because it disturbed the equilibrium that 
had been preserved for thirty years; and because it 
gave to a reckless majority the power to crush out 
the rights of the South, 1 find myself here to-day 
pleading for that principle of equality, and main- 
taining it in accordance with the oath I have taken 
to support the Constitution of the United States. 

It is said that every resident inhabitant of Kan- 
-as has not exercised the right to vote in accord- 
ance with the principles proclaimed by the distin- 
guished Senatorfrom Illinois. Whether they have 
or not is not a question of the slightest import- 
ance to me. I do not recognize the right; I do not 
admit that principle as being a prerequisite to the 
admission of any State whose application is pre- 
sented to us for our consideration. I do not be- 
lieve that the principle of popular sovereignty can 
be properly applied to a Territory. I believe that 
true popular sovereignty begins with the organ- 
ized government of a State. I do not think pop- 
ular sovereignty can be carried outand maintained 
in a Territory when the representatives on this 
floor of thirty-two States have the right to pre- 
scribe the terms upon which that popular sover- 
eignty shall be enforced or exercised. I believe 
that so long as a territorial government exists, and 
so long as the people of Maine or Georgia, through 
their representatives, have a right to interfere with 
it, the people of the Territory cannot exercise 
popular sovereignty in the strict meaning of the 
term. To me it is a paradox to suppose that the 
people of a Territory, coming from every section 
of the globe, influenced and controlled by the ac- 
tion of thjr body and the other House, relying 
upon Congress for enabling acts for a dispensa- 
tion of power on their part, can exercise popular 
sovereignty according to what I have been taught 
to believe true popular sovereignty to be. 

Mr. President, this so-called popular sover- 
eignty in the Territories is nothing in the world 
but squaUer sovereignty. It is the exercise of the 
power of a mob who may choose to get together 
upon factious or other grounds, and who may, by 
poasiBility, fall into a form of government which 
nj^it be in conformity with the recognized laws 
ojflihe land, or might be otherwise. That is not, 
in my comprehension, true popular sovereignty. 
Being called upon to vote on the question now at 
issue, I am free to declare that I am not the ad- 
vocate of the right of every resident inhabitant 
of a Territory to vote on the constitution to be 
presented to Congress for its adoption. I do not 
feel myself bound to consider that point. I belong 
to a party which, small as it may be regarded by 
gentlemen on this floor, and, in the language of 
the distinguished Senator from New York, [Mr. 
Seward,] " ephemeral," gave in the last presi- 
dential contest nearly a million of votes against 
this doctrine. That party holds sentiments and 
principles which I will compare with his own. On 
this point I will, however, allude to the Senator's 
remarks hereafter. 



But there is one other consideration that is 
weighing heavily upon me. It is the conscientious 
desire to discharge my duty here as an American 
Senator, uninfluenced by the future, perhaps for 
myself having no political future. God knows I 
aspire to none. Ay, and elevated as this position 
is, I did not seek the place I now hold; and while 
I stand here to-day, taken upon trust by the peo- 
ple of my own State; while I am here to represent 
the principles, as I conscientiously believe, of my 
own people, I mean to discharge that duty in ac- 
cordance with the principles of honor and my 
own conception of right under the Constitution 
of this country. 

I have nothing to look forward to politically, 
perhaps. It has been my misfortune to have 
always been in the minority in this country. I 
was a member, an humble member, of the old 
Whig party, which received its death blow at the 
hands of the distinguished Senator from New 
York, in 1852. When the old Whig party was 
disorganized and broken up, and when the great 
and conservative principles of that party were lost 
and gone, I had to seek some plank to savejny- 
self from the wreck. In doing so, I put myself 
upon the Constitution of the country, and not 
above it. In standing with the party that I am 
now representing here, in the small minority that 
it is, I conscientiously believe that its principles 
are so deeply ingrafted in the American heart that, 
however much trodden upon, misrepresented, and 
perverted, as they have been, when they are rightly 
understood they will come to-be regarded as the 
principles of the early fathers of this Govern- 
ment. 

Sir, I am proud to have an opportunity to stand 
herein the face of the world, upon the floor of the 
American Senate, and tosay that I am not ashamed 
to proclaim that an American nationality must be 
preserved; that American interests must be pro- 
moted; that the decisions of the Supreme Court 
must be maintained; that alien suffrage and squat- 
ter sovereignty must be repudiated; that the rights 
of conscience must be respected. I am not here 
to vindicate myself from the mere paltry charges 
that may be made in misrepresentation of what 
have been vulgarly denominated Know Nothings 
in this country. The first and highest and the 
holiest principle to me is the maintenance of the 
Constitution of this country, the enforcement of 
its guarantees, the preservation of the rights of 
the States under the Constitution, without which 
you can have no Government, you can have no 
law. 

These, Mr. President, are some of the leading 
measures of that contemned and despised party 
that I have the honor to represent. Is there a 
principle here, let me ask, that is not in conform- 
ity with our great charter of law and of liberty? 
Is there one thing I have uttered that is not taught 
by that paper? The distinguished Senator from 
New York the other day paid his respects to my 
party by alluding to it as an " ephemeral organ- 
izalion, based upon frivolous and foreign ideas." 
It is not so ephemeral as he imagines. I should 
be happy if I could say that the principles of the 
gentleman's party were only frivolous. They 
might possibly be characterized by a harsher term. 
The principles which I have the honor to advo- 
cate here to-day are to be found in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, not outside of it, not 



above it. I say this with emphasis, but with all 
respect to the distinguished gentleman, and for 
this reason: I cannot, in the decisio'h off Ihe pres- 
ent question, hold the slightest political affiliation 
with the tenets or doctrines of that Senator. 

While I have all the feeling that I am uttering 
now for southern interests, and for the South, 
born, reared, and educated, as I have been, in the 
South, yet let me say that no Senator on this floor 
has a heart more expanded and more thoroughly 
in consonance with all the principles of the Union 
than I have. No man will stand here longer than 
I will vindicating the Union. The principles of 
my party are based on one great idea — the preser- 
vation of this Union, by preserving the rights of 
the States in the Union. All tuher questions that 
came into its party platform were collateral ques- 
tions, connected intimately and directly with, and 
fointingto, this one particular purpose and object. 
might go further, and say more perhaps than 
would be justifiable upon the floor of the Senate 
of the United States, in vindication of a party, the 
members of which, whom I find in this body, I am 
happy to say, however few they may be, are gen- 
tlemen who command the respect of those who 
are associated with them here, and of the country. 

But, Mr. President, to come back to the bill 
before us, this question is presented to me in an 
isolated form. I have to vote with the one party 
or the other on this floor. I am brought to the 
naked proposition whether 1 will vote to admit 
the State of Kansas with a constitution made 
under the authority of law, and professedly re- 
publican in form. These are the only points that 
I regard of vital importance in the consideration 
of the question. I have heard from no quarter 
any suggestion of a doubt that the Lecompton 
constitution is not here in accordance with law. 
All the steps leading to its formation were regular 
and lawful. I regard that point as settled. 

The next consideration is, is this constitution 
republican in its form? I have read it carefully, 
and I can see nothing to force upon me the con- 
clusion that it is not republican in its form and 
character. Then, sir, being under no obligation 
whatever to put a construction upon the Cincin- 
nati platform or the Kansas-Nebraska bill as be- 
tween the Administration and the distinguished 
Senator from Illinois, I shall vote to admit Kan- 
sas into the Union under the Lecompton consti- 
tution. In doing so, I believe before God, that, 
as an impartial and independent Senator, I am act- 
ing in accordance with the requirements of duty, 
and which I consider every honorable gentleman 
placed in similar circumstances would be com- 
pelled to adopt. There may be party obligations 
upon some gentlemen influencing them to take a 
different view of this question from myself; but 
I have no embarrassment of that sort. If the 
Administration comes upon the same great high- 
way of right that I am following to maintain and 
to preserve the guarantees of the Constitution, it 
is no reason for me to turn from it, and to be fac- 
tious in my opposition to the Administration. I 
must vote on the one side or the other. I cannot 
upon national questions vote with the party upon 
the other side of the Chamber. 1 cannot vote 
with them because they are sectional, and not 
national; because I am the representative of a 
Union State, one not allying itself to sectional 
questions' or sectional issues in any manner; and 



because every principle advocated by that party, 
in my humble judgment, is against the preserva- 
tion of the Union, and in direct conflict with the 
guarantees and the requirements of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. I am aware, sir, that 
I may bring down upon me the accumulated 
wrath and denunciation of that whole phalanx: 
but I have a duty to discharge, and I will dis- 
charge it in the utterance of this sentiment, fear- 
lessly and regardless of all consequences. 

Sir.it has been announced by the distinguished 
Senator from New York, that the slavery ques- 
tion is settled. I believe it is settled, because 
the agitation of that question was only originally 
raised for the purpose of creating sectional strife, 
and uniting and banding together twenty millions 
of white people in the North against the ten or 
twelve millions to be found in the southern States, 
for nothing more nor less than to obtain the bal- 
ance of power in this country. The question is 
settled upon the principle the gentleman himself 
has stated; and, on this floor there will, in the 
course of a very short time, be a majority of eight 
Senators from the non-slaveholding States. It 
was, in its incipiency, a question merely of 91 c- 
tional agitation, and not one of national politics; 
and I do not believe that the question of politics 
has anything to do with it, further than to 
from the hands of those who have heretofore held 
it, the control of the Government, in order that 
they may exercise it in their own way and for 
their own purposes. 

Mr. President, this agitation of slavery, upon 
which so much has been said; this harp of a thou- 
sand strings, which has vibrated from one ex- 
treme of the country to the other, has no prac- 
tical political bearing on the institution of slavery 
in the South to-day. It is a matter of political 
economy simply; and if gentlemen will turn to 
the tables with which your Departments are filled, 
they will find that, with your three million two 
hundred thousand slaves, taking the very strongest 
view you can possibly admit, you cannot get more 
than half that number — some one million six hun- 
dred thousand slaves — as laborers and producer? 
in this country. Gentlemen of the South talk to 
me with much excitement as to Whether Kansas 
shall be a free State; but permit me to say that I 
regard it as useless agitation. Slavery will be . 
controlled by the immutable laws of political econ- 
omy alone. If this body should declare to-day 
that no more immigrants should go into the Ter- 
ritories north of 35° without slaves, I do not believe 
that you could retain it there five years. 

My reasons for making this broad statement 
are based upon the demand for slave labor in the 
southern fields in the production of those staples 
which form three fifths of the whole exports of the 
United States. It is shown by the book before 
me — one of the best compiled authorities I have 
yet found — Andrews's colonial report, published 
by order of the Senate in 1852, that the production 
of the cotton crop is some five or six hundred 
thousand bales short of the absolute requirement. 
Of the three million two hundred thousand slaves 
which we have in the whole United States, there 
are only two millions two hundred and twenty-four 
thousand in the cotton-growing States. 1 deduct 
from this number two for every slaveholder for 
domestic purpose. There being two hundred 
and twenty-seven thousand slaveholders in those 



States, there would be over four hundred thousand i 
slaves abstracted by household duties from the 
production of cotton and other southern products. 
I 6nd that in the production of sugar, seventy-nine 
thousand nine hundred and eighty-four are em- 
ployed; in the rice crop, sixty-six thousand six 
hundred and fifty-three; and the urban slaves in 
the towns are upwards of three hundred thousand. 
Then you have in the nine cotton-growing States 
only one million three hundred thousand slaves 
adapted to field labor. When you subtract still 
further, in accordance with the census, all the 
slaves below ten and over sixty years of age, you 
have, in fact, but eight hundred thousand to pro- 
duce the cotton of the whole United States. 

Now, I ask gentlemen here who are engaged in 
the cultivation of this crop, if four bales of cotton 
to the hand is not an excessive average in the 
production of the southern States? According to 
the census, the average production is three and 
one fifth bales; but 1 will say four bales. I judge 
from the census tables, and from the document to 
which I have alreadyalluded, that this is areason- 
ableestimate; though perhaps it may be toolarge. 
This gives three million two hundred thousand 
bales of cotton as the maximum crop that you 
can cultivate with the slave labor that you have 
nowin the southern States. My friend from Mis- 
sissippi [Mr. Brown] told me the other day that 
there were perhaps one hundred thousand other 
hands, white laborers, in Texas and other States, 
small holders who are engaged also in the produc- 
lion of cotton. That will account for the excess 
of production over three million two hundred 
thousand bales, which would be the production 
at four bales to the hand of the present slave 
labor. 

The crop of cotton last year fell short some five 
or six hundred thousand bales of the absolute and 
imperative demand. What was the consequence? 
It rose to eighteen and nineteen cents a pound; 
and but for the financial crisis that overtook this 
country, breaking up all the avenues of trade and 
of commerce, we should have this day been com- 
pelled to pay twenty or twenty-one cents a pound 
for cotton. Last year the exports of cotton, ac- 
cording to Mr. Guthrie's report, amounted to 
. $130,000,000; the year before to $88,000,000. 

In 1852, according to Mr. Andrews's report, 
the total consumption of raw cotton in the United 
States amounted to $46,340,000; and in this state- 
ment the late Secretary of the Treasury fully and 
entirely accords. Thatadded to the $130,000,000 
of ex ports, makes the cotton crop of this country in 
1855, when these tables were made, $180,000,000; 
and allowing for the increased production, by im- 
migration from the other slave States, the crop of 
that staple now is worth not less than $200,000,000 
— all or the greater part of which you must grow 
with slave labor, for the simple reason that the 
greater part of the lands adapted to the cultivation 
of cotton are in an insalubrious climate. They 
are exclusively adapted to slave or black labor; so 
situated that the white immigration to this coun- 
rry will not and could not readily mix with it. 

Without depopulating the whole of the five non- 
cotton-growing States of the South, the produc- 
tion of cotton in this country is limited for the 
want of labor. According to the returns to which 
I have alluded, and to Mr, Guthrie's report of 
1855-56, six hundred and fifty thousand bales of 



cotton were that year consumed at home, while 
our exports amounted to two million nine hun- 
dred thousand bales. I do not mean to say that 
the six hundred and fifty thousand bales added 
to'the two million nine hundred thousand bales 
was the production of that year; for there was 
an accumulation of a portion of the crop of the 
year before, which had been held back by low 
water and from other causes, and which had been 
prevented from getting to market. 

What was the picture presented last year in 
Manchester? Meetings of the people were held 
to form Cotton Leagues to encourage the growth 
of cotton elsewhere. I might read, for the edifi- 
cation of the Senate, if they had not turned their 
attention to it before, statements showing that, up 
to 1852, all the cotton that was produced in the 
world was 1,809,800,000 pounds, of which the Uni- 
ted States produced 1,350,000,000— seven tenths 
almost of the whole production of the world, not- 
withstandingall the fostering care that the English 
and French Governments have given to the culti- 
vation of cotton, in the colonies, in order to ren- 
der themselves independent of us and of the pro- 
ductions of slave labor. The time was when the 
English Government, in endeavoring to crush out 
a rising and successful competitor, was willing to 
make large sacrifices, in order to have the monop- 
oly; but that day is passed. With every exertion 
she has made — with all the fostering care she has 
given to the cultivation of cotton in every part of 
the world — in Egypt, the East Indies, the West 
Indies, Demarara, Pernambuco, Brazil, China, 
and all other places, I have given you the sum 
total of the cotton crop of the world, the United 
States producing seven tenths of the whole. 

Well may England look to it when the peace, 
the happiness, and the prosperity of her people; 
when the strength, power, and glory of her own 
country is dependent upon it; because, without her 
manufactures she is nothing. The two million 
bales that she takes from us form a bond of peace, 
a guarantee, a surety, not stronger, however, than 
that bond we have upon our northern brethren, 
who consume now as the basis of the whole man- 
ufacturing system of this country, seven hundred 
thousand bales of this same southern staple, upon 
which all the manufacturing system of the north- 
ern States is ramified and expanded. The man- 
ufactures of cotton, according to the Secretary of 
the Treasury, for the year 1855, are estimated at 
$70,964,712; and the value of all manufactured 
articles' was $1,391,031,293. The whole value of 
agricultural products was $1,211,322,000, making 
in the aggregate the sum of $2,600,000,000 of pro- 
ductions in this country. Allowing $1,000,000,000 
of these productions to be consumed at the points 
of production, where they were made by the plant- 
ers and by the manufacturers themselves, we 
should have left for our internal and external trade 
$1,600,000,000. Deducting $310,000,000 of ex- 
ports, we should have $1,300,000,000 of products 
sent from one section to another in this country 
upon the basis of a legitimate free trade — the mere 
exchange of equivalents. 

Sir, is this not a question for my northern 
friends to consider ? Out of that $1,300,000,000, 
of manufactured articles, I concede to the northern 
States two thirds. My own little State of Mary- 
land, with six hundred thousand people only, not 
so many as the great city of New York, produced 



|45,000,000 of manufactures, and $20,000,000 of 
agricultural produce in the year 1856. Aftergiving 
to the northern States two thirds of the whole 
manufacture, I shall claim, then, two thirds of all 
the agricultural products of this country for the 
southern States, with ten millions of people alto- 
gether. But I shall be told, perhaps, that slave 
labor is profitable in other pursuits than the culti- 
vation of cotton. So it may be; so I grant you it is; 
but no other crop in this country stands upon the 
Bame footing as that crop — which is a monopoly, 
and controls, not only the destiny of this country, 
but, I may say, the destinies of the world. It 
is the great bond of peace between us and the 
strongest Government on the face of the earth. It 
is a bond of peace which ought to be shared be- 
tween the northern States and ourselves. 

There are other crops which pay high remu- 
nerating prices to slave labor, and compete to 
the extent of their production with cotton. I al- 
lude to hemp and tobacco. But the demand for 
both these crops is comparatively small and' lim- 
ited. The average value of the tobacco crop for 
ten years is not quite twelve millions, and that of 
hemp but little above four millions. The whole 
tobacco crop of this country for 1856 was produced 
from four hundred thousand acres, and that of 
hemp from one hundred and ten thousand acres, 
while the cotton crop for the same year had under 
cultivation seven million acres to produce three 
million two hundred thousand bales. The "cot- 
ton zone," as it is appropriately styled by An- 
drews, extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rio 
del Norte, and includes the States of South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Texas, and those portions of the States of North 
Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, that lie below 
35° north latitude, and all of Florida above the 
twenty -seventh parallel; having an area of four 
hundred and fifty thousand square miles, and 
more than forty-five million acres of available cot- 
ton lands yet to improve. 

Mr. President, I have taken these statements 
from the best authorities of the country, and gone 
thus elaborately into them for the purpose of 
showing the extent of the cotton region, the im- 
portance of the crop, and the present amount of 
labor we have to apply to it; and so long as the 
supply of cotton is below the demand, from the 
want of sufficient labor to produce it, the natural 
tendency will be to draw slave immigration into 
that region only, in spite of all mere political in- 
fluences which may be brought to bear to other- 
wise control it. 

I merely throw out these views, not in any re- 
proach to the northern people, but simply as a 
consideration for them to regard the great interests 
of this country, to look to the permanency of this 
Union, to the working of this system that imparts 
to them greater benefits than they can derive under 
any other system of government. You may talk , 
sir, about this Union being in danger. I, as a con- 
servative, middle man in this country, tell you 
that I believe in my heart of hearts that this Union 
is in danger; and I believe that it is endangered 
because certain principles have been promulgated 
in that section of the country holding the large 
majority — principles of higher-lawism; principles 
which set the Constitution at naught; principles 
which abrogate the opinion and the decisions of 
ilie Supreme Court; principles which have been 



introduced into this country at variance and in 
direct conflict with all the received opinions of 
a popular, free, representative form of govern- 
ment. 

Mr. President, I am representing here in part 
a State as truly devoted to her southern associ- 
ations and southern glory as any other State. I 
am representing a city, two thirds of whose com- 
mercial capital is southern. I am representing a 
people whose hearts are as nearly allied to the 
South as those of the people of any other southern 
State; but, sir, at the same time, I am represent- 
ing a State and a city whose whole future is based 
upon this Union, who have signalized their devo- 
tion to the Union, who have contributed as fully 
and as freely to the formation of this Government 
as any other State in the Confederacy ; and I should 
be recreant to the trust that has been confided to 
my hands if I did not protest against the agitation 
of this question, which has no practical bearing 
upon the subject of slavery. It has been said on 
the other side of the Chamber, that the majority of 
the people of Kansas have the right to amend 
their constitution in their own way, and for their 
own purposes, in their own time; and, sir, I admit 
it. I believe the people of Kansas, in their sov- 
ereign capacity as a State, have that right, and 
not before. I believe that by the agitation of that 
question here on this floor, you are keeping up, 
giving pabulum to that sectional strife which, 
unless it ceases, must deal the death-How to this 
Union, and finally tear in pieces the wicbi charter 
of our American citizenship. I believ it in my 
heart and in my soul. I am conservative in all 
my feelings and views. I am as much opposed 
to ultraism or higher-lawism, whether it comes 
from the far South or thefar North, as any Sen- 
ator here. I believe that our destiny is in this 
Union, under the Constitution, and it is only 
under it; for when the Constitution ceases to be 
respected, when the decisions of the Supreme 
Court fail to be regarded — that umpire, that ref- 
eree in the very construction of this Govern- 
ment, to whom all litigated cases are referred — 
there is an end to free representative Government 
here. 

Gentlemen talk of dividing this Union. You 
may, by a convulsion, break up the Union; but 
you cannot divide it. You cannot, in my judg- 
ment, bring upon this continent two separate and 
distinct Powers. They cannot exist with the 
sources of their mighty rivers in one section and 
their mouths in the other. They cannot exist 
together in peace. Free government will then 
have failed; its soaring spirit will have departed; 
and then you will come to a stronger and more 
consolidated Government than that under which 
we now live. I trust in God that I may be spared 
that day; I trust in God that time may nevercome; 
but if the spirit of sectional strife is allowed to 
maintain in this country; if this question is al- 
lowed to be longer presented to the masses of the 
people — appealing directly to their sectional pre- 
judices and passions; if the elements of discord 
be not removed from here; then, sir, I have but 
little hope for the settlement of the question with- 
out blood. 

Mr. President, in voting, as I mean to do, for 
this measure, I greatly regret that the dominant 
party on this floor have seen fit to connect it with 
another; for, to my taste and to my sense, a more 



6 



odious principle has never been promulgated in 
this country than is contained in the Minnesota 
constitution. I am not aware whether Senators 
have looked into that article of the Minnesotacon- 
stitution to which I refer. I admit, frankly and 
freely, that it is not my province or my right to 
amend or alter the provisions of the constitution 
of a State for whose admission I am about to vote, 
further than to enter my protest against them. 
The provision to which I allude is odious; it is 
dangerous. It is part and parcel of the doctrines 
of the distinguished Senator from New York; not 
"frivolous," but it is foreign to the principles of 
the founders of this Government. The Minne- 
sota constitution provides — 

"Section 1. Every male person of the age of twenty-one 
years or upwards,belonging to either oftbe following classes, 
wiio shall have resided iii the United states one year, and 

in this State for tout months next preceding any elect 

shall be entitled to vote at such election, in the election dis 
trict Of which be shall at the time have been for ten days a 
resident, for all officers that now are, or hereafter may be, 
elective by the people : 

•' 1st. White citizens of the United States. 

" 3d. White persons of foreign birth, who shall have de- 
clared their intention to become citizens, conformably to 
the laws of the United States upon the subject of naturali- 
zation. 

"3d. Persons Of mixed white and Indian blood, who 
have adopted the customs and habits of civilization. 

"4th. Persons of Indian blood residing in this State, who 
have adopted the language, customs, and habits of civiliza- 
tion, after an examination before anj district court of the 
State, in such manner as may be provided by law, and shall 
have been pronounced by said court capable of enjoying the 

rights of citizenship within the State. •• * * '* * 
"Sec. 7. Every person who, by the provisions of this 
article, shall be entitled to vote at anv election, shall he 
eligible to any office which now is. or ben alter shall be, 
elective by the people in the district wherein he shall have 
resided thirty days previous to such election, except as other 
wise provided in this constitution, or in the Constitution 
and laws of the United States." 

Mr. President, here is a principle to which I will 
never subscribe. It is in direct contravention of 
every notion of mine in regard to the doctrines 
of our Government. It is a principle which, if 
carried out, will aggregate in the masses of the 
twenty millions of the North all power, and deny 
to the seven or eight millions of white people at the 
South any equality in this Government. Squat- 
ter sovereignty and alien suffrage are principles 
that I abhor and repudiate. If carried out they 
will subvert every doctrine of our free Govern- 
ment that we have cherished and regarded. But, 
sir, I have to vote upon the Minnesota constitu- 
tion upon the same basis as the Lecompton con- 
stitution, because it is here by the authority of 
law, because it is republican in its form. I vote 
for its admission, but I do say that this principle 
of the Minnesota constitution is in direct conflict 
with both the letter and the spirit of the Constitu- 
tion of the Ujiited States in this respect. I have 
no remedy in my hands to right it. A wiser and 
a greater man than myself so proclaimed on this 
floor in 1836, against this doctrine in the constitu- 
tion of Michigan. 1 protest against that doctrine 
which, if carried out, must break up that equality 
which exists in this Government, must destroy 
the rights of the southern States, and must event- 
ually change the form and character of the Gov- 
ernment under which we live. 

1 alluded, a little while ago, to a remark made by 
my distinguished friend from New York. I speak 
of him as my friend, because, really, I have no mo- 
tive for addressing him otherwise than as a friend. 



Mr. SEWARD. I hope not. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I may speak with earnest- 
ness, but I feel kindly towards all my associates 
here, and I trust I shall never violate the rules of 
courtesy or gentlemanly decorum on this floor. I 
say at the same time that the gentleman thought 
proper to allude to that party, which I represent 
here, as "ephemeral and asfrivolous"in its views. 
The head and front of the offending of Millard Fill- 
more prior to 1852 was that, under the solemn ob- 
ligations of his oath, he enforced and maintained 
the fugitive slave law as one of the laws under 
the Constitution of this country, for which act 
the gentleman and his party repudiated him; on 
account of which they broke up every conserva- 
tive principle that had been advocated by the old 
Whig organization in this country. I do not mean 
here to say one word against the distinguished 
nominee of the Whig convention in 1852,thouffh 
his nomination was very much the work of the 
Senator's hands; but I say that convention dug 
the grave of the Whig party. That convention 
forced and led to the formation of the American 
party; and, in the incipiency of that party, many 
of the distinguished gentlemen of the North, not 
perhaps the Senator himself, but some of his 
present followers, joined it until the question of 
slavery was brought into it. 

Mr. SEWARD. The Senator will excuse me 
for asking him not to put any " perhaps" before 
my name in that category. There is no doubt 
about it at all. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I did not mean to say that 
the gentleman himself had ever been a member of 
the American party. 

Mr. SEWARD. Or had connection or sym- 
pathy with it. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Tsaid perhaps some of your 
friends had. 

Mr. SEWARD. That is fair. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I was perfectly aware where 
the Senator himself stood, and where his present 
party stands; and it is upon that knowledge that , 
I have to take my position now. I have to choose 
between them and their opponents here. Upon 
national questions there is no affiliation between 
the party of the Senator from New York and my- 
self. Upon mere questions of policy I make no 
pledges. So long as thatgreatgulf has been made 
between us on sectional issues in contravention to 
the guarantees of the Constitution of this coun- 
try, in violation of compacts and compromises, 
while we shall be very good friends we cannot 
work on the same side. I am free to admit (I say 
it in order to set myself right here) that I mean 
to vote for the Lecompton constitution because it 
takes the slavery question out of this Chamber, 
because it gives you no pretext, no legitimate right 
upon this floor to agitate further the question of 
slavery except upon that responsibility which all 
agitators and persons and parties found in rebel- 
lion against the organized authorities of the Gov- 
ernment, choose to take. 

Sir, the responsibility of agitation will rest upon 
the gentlemen here who initiate it when once the 
mantle of sovereignty has been thrown upon the 
people of Kansas, and outside pressure has been 
removed. I am happy to say, frankly, I am per- 
fectly free to admit that the message of the Pres-* 
ident upon this question, however much he may 
have been wrong in his policy before, in my judg- 



ment is the only measure of peace that can now 
beadopted. As such I accept it. Upon that ground 
I take it. I believe, before God, he is right; but 
whatever result may come, J am not to be held 
accountable for it. The authors, and beginners, 
and originators, of this question must take the re- 
sponsibility to themselves. I do not mean to vote 
to keep up agitation in Kansas by letting the peo- 
ple of Maine or Georgia, Maryland or Vermont, 
claim the right to' frame a constitution there. A 
constitution has been presented to me in conform- 
ity with law, legal in all its bearings. The ques- 
tion of fraud I ignore. There has been fraud on 
all sides. There has been cheatery of every kind. 
I do not mean to consider it. If representatives 
come here under a fraudulent vote it is competent 
for this body to purge itself of them, and to inves- 
tigate frauds affecting the election of its members. 
I have stated my views, Mr. President; I have 
protested against the principle of alien suffrage in 
the Minnesota constitution. I speak for a State 
that I believe to be as truly, I know to be as thor- 
oughly, sensitive upon all questions affecting the 
rights of the South as any; yet, at the same time, 
with every pulsation of her heart beating for the 
preservation of this Union ; with every commercial 
tie and connection that she has with the South and 
Southwest, she is endeavoring to act as a mediator 
in all this war of strife upon an impractical issue — 
one, really in my humble judgment, of not the 
slightest moment or the slightest importance, for 
the reasons I have stated; because slave labor will 
be controlled by the principle of political economy, 
the immutable law of supply and demand. I vote, 
then, to take the question of slavery away from 
these Halls by the only means that is in my power. 
I vote in accordance with the principle of the 



party that I have the honor to represent, which 
has for one of its cardinal doctrines that alien suf- 
frage and squatter sovereignty must be repudiated. 
Believing that the proper authority has decided 
it not to be necessary to submit the Lecompton 
constitution to every resident inhabitant of Kan- 
sas for a vote of approval or rejection, I shall vote 
for the acceptance of that constitution. 

One other point of view I will allude to before 
I conclude; and that is the inalienable right of the 
people of a State, in the exercise of popular sov- 
ereignty, in conformity to law, to amend their 
constitution in their own way and for their own 
purposes. The Legislature of my own State of 
Maryland has, within the last three days, passed 
a bill on precisely that ground, all parties concur- 
ring in it. Americans and Democrats have just 
passed a bill to take the sense of the people on 
amending the constitution of Maryland, which 
now has in it a clause prohibiting the change or 
amendment of that constitution until 1862. It has 
been done in accordance with the forms of law. 
It is to be submitted to the people. If there be 
any question of difference as regards this partic- 
ular constitution of Kansas, how can you so read- 
ily, in what manner can you so soon and so easily, 
remedy the evil as by admitting the State? If 
there be a majority of ten thousand against it, that 
majority can control it. Take it away from here, 
and let us get to the real business of the country. 
Let us take away the exciting subject of dispute ' 
and quarrel, for which this Congress has been 
agitated now for three months, and give it to the 
people of Kansas to settle. 

For these reasons, sir, I shall vote for the ad- 
mission of Kansas under the Lecompton consti- 
tution. 



Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 



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